The Death of Ron
by Maggie Silverstein
Summary: The trio's 7th year. Self explanitory with twists. Disclaimer: I don't own anything. JKR does.


Ron

"This isn't happening. This can't be happening. Are you sure?" Harry, Hermione, and I sat in the deserted common room. Occasionally someone would come downstairs carrying their belongings. "Are we the only ones staying?" I asked. Harry shrugged and leaned against the back of the couch. "Do you suppose we should go find Dumbledore?" My two friends were silent, so I got up and started to walk towards the portrait hole.

Behind me, I heard the others get up and follow suit. Dumbledore wasn't in his office, so we went down stairs to the Entrance Hall. Standing near the front doors was Dumbledore, along with Ginny, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood, Fleur Delacour, Viktor Krum, and most of the Order, including Fred and George.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Students, you know that I can not ask you to stay here and risk your lives. If I am not mistaken, the Hogwarts Express has not left yet. There is still time. Voldemort shows no mercy." No one moved. "Very well. You were all excellent students, even if you weren't mine." He opened the doors. In the distance, there was a huge cloud of smoke accompanied by the small flickering lights of torches. Everyone pulled their wands out and waited. Hermione slipped her fingers into mine. I looked at her questioningly. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me, right on the lips. For a moment, I thought I was in shock.

I cleared my throat. "Well…uh…thanks," I said, trying not to break into a smile. "So…what do you want to do when this is all over? Shopping? Or there's that one muggle game you were talking about…miniature golf?"

"I guess so," Harry answered, rubbing dirt off his wand with his robes. "I need a few more potions supplies. I threw the last of my aconite at Draco on Tuesday. I could do with some new shoes too. These ones are starting to hurt my feet." The mob of Death Eaters was getting closer and closer as we stood in the door way, just talking about nothing. "We should probably go now."

The procession began. We walked in a single file line to the gate, wands at the ready. Spells were soon flying everywhere. Harry was busy fighting the Death Eaters surrounding Voldemort while Hermione and I had been backed up against the wall of Hogwarts by 6 of 7 of them. Hermione managed to stun most of them and I blasted them into the lake.

Suddenly, Hermione was hit from behind with the Cruciatus Curse. She began screaming and fell to her knees, revealing the Death Eater behind her. There was no way anyone wouldn't have recognized that horrible, pointed face. Draco Malfoy stood with his wand still on Hermione. I jumped up, angrier than he had ever been in his entire life. "So Weasley, still fighting for the mudblood? I'd have thought maybe you'd be on our side once you realized that you were going to die anyways. A pure blood fighting on the side of half bloods and mudbloods. I suppose I could just dispose of you now so you wouldn't have to suffer. Or I could make you suffer. DELETRIUS!"

Pain shot through my body as I was thrown against the wall. I began to stand up again even though my head was throbbing. Draco smiled and threw me against the wall again. A sickening crack rang through the air as my wrist snapped, making me drop my wand. Over and over Draco did this until most of the bones in my body were broken. I couldn't remember ever feeling this amount of pain before. I didn't think I could have moved if he wanted to.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Draco stopped cackling as the flash of green light Harry had always talked about coursed through the air. The slimy Slytherin fell to the ground. Hermione rushed to my side, gently lifting my head into her lap. "Ron, oh I'm so sorry! Does it hurt? What am I saying, of course it hurts. Listen to me, just babbling on and on. We have to get you to the hospital wing. There is no more hospital wing…" Even though Hermione wouldn't shut up, I felt comforted just lying there in her sweet smelling lap. The fighting around us seemed to disappear. We were the only ones there. A lock of her hair fell into my face. I raised his left arm, the only bones that weren't broken, and pushed it behind her ear. Tears began running down her cheeks. "Ron…I love you…"

"Shh…I know. I love you too. Please don't cry. It doesn't hurt that much. Really. I can barely feel it." I was lying. And she knew it. I could practically feel every splinter of bone, and the blood that flowed freely from the gashes on his eye brow and the back of his head. Through all the pain, I didn't notice that I had started crying too. "I don't wanna die…"

Harry appeared behind Hermione. He looked like he was going to be sick. "They've retreated. We've won…for tonight." He knelt down next to me. "Still want to go shopping, mate? I'll lend you a few galleons." I smiled a bit. "I'll leave you alone for a bit." His mood did not make me or Hermione any more hopeful. It seemed to us that I was, indeed, going to die.

"Hermione…I'm sorry about all that stuff I did…in 1st year and 2nd year…and 3rd…and especially 4th…and 5th…and last year. I'm really sorry." She smiled and kissed me. It felt, for a moment, that I was melting into her lap. A world of darkness was mixing with the world of only Hermione. I closed my eyes and continued kissing her.

Hermione

I pulled away from him. He was deathly cold and his eyes were closed. Harry put his hands on my shoulders and lifted me from underneath him. "Harry, let me go! Let go of me!" I broke free from his grasp, falling to the ground beside Ron. "Ron, wake up! Please wake up! No!" Despite the fact that I knew most of his bones were broken, and it wouldn't be smart to, I started shaking him. He couldn't be dead. Not after that kiss…

"Hermione, you have to let him go. We're taking the two of you to the hospital wing. Dumbledore's set a makeshift infirmary up there. He'll heal your arm." My arm? I looked at it. I hadn't even noticed I wasn't able to move it. Lifting the left sleeve of my sweater, I saw the huge gash above my elbow. That was the breaking point. My screams could have been heard in London. It wasn't because of the pain, because there was no pain. My arm was limp, but I didn't care. Ron had to be alright. I'd die if he wasn't. "Hermione, stop screaming! It won't help anything! You can't change it now!" He conjured a stretcher for Ron and grabbed my wrist.

I tried to break free again, but I was too tired. Harry half carried, half dragged me up the 4 flights of stairs to the hospital wing. "Harry, where's Ron? What'd you do to him? Where is he? He's not dead! He's not dead! Let me go! What's that?" He had handed me a goblet full of a purplish liquid. I recognized it, but it wouldn't register in my memory what it was. He gently pushed back on my shoulders so I was lying down, even though I hadn't noticed I'd sat up. Tipping my head back, he poured the liquid down my throat. It didn't taste bad, but it didn't taste good. "But Harry...Ron…he's…not…"

"Hermione, dear? Hermione, are you awake?"

"I am now. Where am I?" I tried sitting up, but my arm gave way beneath me. Realization dawned on me. "Where is he?! What did you do with him?! Let me see him! Harry, please." Opening my eyes, I realized that it was not Harry that had woken me up, but Mrs. Weasley. "Mrs. Weasley! They killed him! Draco killed him! And I killed Draco…Mrs. Weasley, I killed someone! And it didn't do any good! He's still dead!"

She put her hand on my shoulder. It was oddly comforting. I sank back into the pillows. He was dead. I couldn't do anything about it. No one could. The pillows were really soft, so I closed my eyes.

Someone was holding my hand. It was warm, and I didn't pull away, even though I knew nothing could help. It was probably Harry, or maybe Ginny. Definitely someone who felt sorry for me. Curiosity got the better of me and I opened my eyes to see, "Ron! You're alive!" He was smiling. I pulled my hand from his and ran my fingers through his hair. There was a large bandage over his right eye brow and his right arm was in a sling. "But…I thought you were dead! They wouldn't tell me where you were! I assumed you were dead and they didn't want to tell me! What happened? Where's everyone else?"

Ron's face fell a bit. "Well, everyone was fighting, as you know. We managed to kill enough of them that they retreated but…well…they got Dean, and Angelina, Fred isn't going to take that too well, and Fleur…and Snape, and Moody, and…Hermione, they got Hagrid."

"They got Hagrid?!" My heart sank. "You said we killed enough of them. Who did we get? Besides Draco." He named off 10 people, including Peter Pettigrew and Pansy Parkinson. "Well that's good then, I suppose." Just then, Dumbledore came into the room.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, the Order has taken base in Gryffindor tower. Please join us there when you feel you are well enough to leave the hospital wing." He and a few other members of the order went into Madame Pomfrey's office and came out with numerous bottles of potion.

Ron stood up. "I suppose we should go then," he said. He gave me his hand and helped me out of the bed. My left arm still couldn't move. It hung by my side like a limp noodle. I suspected that the cut had severed a nerve, though I wasn't exactly sure if there were any nerves in my arm, or where I got the cut. I held Ron's hand as I followed him up to the Tower.

Ron

Once again, we all stood in the entrance way, our wands ready. Hermione's arm still couldn't move, but mine had healed enough to be out of the sling. I squeezed her hand even though I knew she couldn't squeeze mine back to comfort me. The cloud of smoke was beginning to seem familiar. I looked around at everyone, realizing that I probably wouldn't see some of them ever again.

Harry came and stood next to me. "You ready?" I nodded, and Hermione did too. We braced ourselves for the first shot. I was strongly reminded of one of those Revolutionary War thingies that Harry had told me he'd had to learn about when he was in Muggle School. A muffled scream was heard and everyone turned to look at Seamus who was engulfed by coils of snake. "Someone get it off him! Hurry!" But the snake wouldn't budge. Try as we might, she wouldn't let go of Seamus. Finally, Ginny shoved Harry out of the way. Angrily, she raised her foot and crushed the snake's tail beneath it.

Unfortunately, her plan worked. True, Seamus was no longer suffocating under the immenseness of the snake, but it rebounded and snapped at Ginny. Cries of "Stupefy!" rang through the entrance hall as everyone stunned the snake. Bill and Charlie dragged it into a closet and locked it in.

Luna attempted to lift the unconscious Seamus off the ground, but pulled back in horror, her hands covered with blood. The snake had bitten him, and he wasn't unconscious, but dead. The first casualty of the night. I knew that more were to come. In the corner, Cho fainted. It seemed to take the Death Eaters hours to force open the gate, and even longer for them to begin fighting. Hermione, Harry, and I watched as some of the Death Eaters fled into the Forbidden Forest. We ran after them, bombarding them with spells as we did. They were backed up against a gigantic tree. One of them had dropped their wand in the chase. Harry jabbed one of them with his wand, a look of pure hatred on his face.

"Where's Voldemort?! Why won't he show himself?! ANSWER ME!" I grabbed Harry by the collar.

"Harry, that's not going to help anything. He'll come when he comes. Let's just leave them here and let the centaurs have him. He doesn't deserve any better," Hermione said calmly. Harry lowered his wand, but the look did not vanish from his face. The three of us turned around. I stepped on something and heard it crack. Picking it up, I realized that it was the dropped wand. "Well, he's not going to need it now," Hermione told me, pulling it from my hand and stepping on it again.

Their screams were heard as we exited the forest. Centaurs could come in handy sometimes. Like when you needed to kill off a bunch of Death Eaters. The grounds were littered with smoldering patches of grass. No one was in site.

"You don't think they all…" Hermione started, her hand going to her mouth.

"No. There's a light on in the Gryffindor Tower. We just missed it, that's all," I said, putting my arm lovingly around her shoulders.

Hermione

His arm around my shoulders made me happy, but feeling happy right now was making me feel guilty. I sped up, his arm falling. We walked in silence up to the tower. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were helping Bill wrap a scrape up just inside the portrait hole. At the sight of us, Mrs. Weasley dropped the wrappings and pulled the three of us into an extremely close hug.

"Oh, thank goodness! We thought you'd been lost!" she exclaimed, not letting us go until Ron cleared his throat, alerting her that we couldn't breathe. There was a significantly small number of people in the common room. I hoped that some people were just up in the dormitories. "There are only 11 of them left. But we've got 15, so we should have an advantage." My eyes widened. 15? That's all that was left of the Order? There were 15 people in the room. No one was upstairs. I sank down onto a couch. Ron sat beside me. I quickly got up again and heard him sigh behind me.

Racking my brain, I tried to figure out who wasn't there. Seamus of course. Cho, Luna, Wood, Dung…and…who else was there? "Wait a minute, where's Krum?" Ron's panicked voice rang. That was it. Viktor had been brought down. No one bothered answering him. "There goes the Bulgarian Quidditch Team…"

"How can you think of Quidditch at a time like this?!" I screamed.

He looked at me blankly. For a moment, I thought he was going to cry, but he simply said, "You should never not think of Quidditch." Behind us, Harry's knees gave out. I vaguely heard him mutter something about Cho. Ginny was furious. She began to storm off toward the girls dormitories, but Dumbledore stopped her. She screamed, not caring if all 14 pairs of eyes were on her. I watched as she walked up to Harry, bent down and smacked him as hard as she could. My eyes widened. I'd never seen Ginny this angry. "Ginny, what's gotten into you?!" Ron had gotten up and was pulling a struggling Ginny away from Harry who was cowering behind the couch, the side of his face a bright red.

"Harry, Cho isn't important! She's dead! I'm standing right here! I've always been standing right here!" Harry blinked. I sat down on the couch again and put my head in my hands. Everyone was going crazy. They were resorting to this to keep their minds off Voldemort and the Death Eaters. It wasn't working. It just got people more riled up.

A few hours later, Harry and Ginny were still in a row. She kept yelling that he was too daft to do anything. He kept yelling that she was daft for calling him daft and not telling him that she still liked him. Boys were such idiots. Ron was sitting on the other end of the couch. He seemed cautious towards me, like I was going to burst into flames if he touched me. I kind of felt like I would too. It was a terrible feeling, being guilty for loving someone. But this wasn't the right time.

Wait, if this wasn't the right time, when was? It was entirely possible that tomorrow he or I would be dead. No, don't think about things like that. I started braiding pieces of my hair (my left arm worked now) to keep my mind busy. It wasn't working.

It was now or never. I scooted closer to him. He didn't notice. Closer still I inched and still he kept looking at the floor. Suddenly, he fell into my lap, smiling. "Well, this seems familiar," he said, finally making me laugh. His smile faltered a bit. "Hermione, are you scared? Of all this, I mean. This fighting with V…v…Voldemort and everything?" I struggled to keep down a laugh. That was the first time Ron had ever said Voldemort in his entire life.

"A little bit," I answered. "There are just things about it that scare me. I'm not really afraid of dying. Afraid of failing, as always. Afraid of losing you again."

"Again? Hermione, you never lost me," he sat up saying. I looked away from him. I had lost him, just not in a physical way. Ever since I'd met him, we'd had fights and after most of these fights, we hadn't been friends for a while. That's when I'd lost him. I could tell he knew what I meant when he looked at my face. He pulled me into his arms. "You will never lose me. Never. Look at me. I will never let that happen. I love you, Hermione. Nothing can change that. Nothing will take me away from you, or you from me. Not even death." I shuddered as he said the word. I didn't want to think about that anymore.

Ron moved back into my lap. I yawned and started petting his hair as if he was Crookshanks. I slipped down on top of Ron as sleep overtook me.

Ron

I awoke with Hermione gently tracing her finger over the R on my sweater. During the night, she had moved to where we were snuggling close beside one another. It was still dark outside, but no one was in the common room. I'd expected that they had all went to the dormitories when shouts were heard outside the portrait hole. Fred and George were shouting that the password had changed.

Hermione hopped off the couch and opened the portrait hole. The twins were carrying Harry between them. It looked like he was in shock. I jumped off the couch as they threw him down. "What's happened?" Hermione shrieked.

"Well, while you two were dreaming about the daisies, the rest of us decided to go and fight Voldemort again," Fred said. I looked at my watch. It was 6 in the morning. I exclaimed that Voldemort was stupid to think that even his Death Eaters would want to fight at 6 in the morning. "It's 6 at night, you moron! You've been sleeping with Hermione for 16 hours! You missed the entire fight! Do you want to know why Harry's sitting over there mumbling incoherently?! Do you?! It's because Ginny is dead! Voldemort killed her! And you know what else?! So are Mum and Dad!"

Charlie and Bill had entered the common room and were attempting to keep Fred and George from strangling me. It wasn't working very well, but I didn't care. I sat there in numb disbelief as the rest of the Order filed into the room. "Fred, back off. It's not his fault," Bill said, practically strangling Fred.

"It is his fault! If he was there! He could have done something! But he wasn't!"

"What was he going to do, George, risk his own life? If it's anyone's fault it's mine! I'm the one who fell asleep on top of him! Wouldn't it have been rather rude to just shove me off?! And why didn't you wake us up?! I didn't want Ginny or your parents to die any more than you did, but it's not anyone's fault! We all agreed to risk our lives! That's part of being in the Order! You can't blame someone for someone else's death unless they killed them! If you want to blame someone, blame Voldemort! Blame him for killing your parents! Blame him for killing Ginny! Blame him for killing Harry's parents! Blame him for killing EVERYONE! This was an accident! If you keep yelling at Ron, the entire Order is going to start crumbling around us! We have to stick together! We have to have faith that we can win!" Hermione was screaming at the top of her lungs. It seemed that she didn't even take a breath during all her ranting. I'd never seen her this angry. The only time she'd even gotten close was in 4th year when she got mad at me because I didn't ask her to the Ball before Krum.

Harry fell off the couch. It appeared that he hadn't heard a word of what Hermione had been yelling. "She's gone. It's all my fault for not killing him sooner." He attempted to get up from the ground, but slipped off the couch once again. Fred and I both rushed to catch him at the same time. Hermione was really good at making people feel guilty. "Ginny…" So did Harry. His hopeless and broken hearted expression reached us all. Fred and George apologized and sat on opposite sides of Harry.

The effects of Hermione's yelling began to wear off on me as I sank into a chair and weakly whispered, "Mum…"

Hermione

All thoughts of Ron's parents and Ginny were soon the furthest from our minds. Voldemort didn't waste any time attacking again. We left Harry in the common room so he wouldn't go psycho and do anything rash. The Death Eaters were out numbered anyways, so we didn't really need him.

With only 7 of them left, it didn't take long for them to decide to leave. We did manage to kill one of them, though. I'm pretty sure it was Lucius Malfoy. In fact, I hope it was Lucius Malfoy. Serves the Malfoy family right. If you mess with death, chances are, you're going to end up dead. Harry was in a right state. He wouldn't eat anything, or leave the couch for that matter, which made sitting in the common room a sort of contest. We all felt bad for him, so we didn't bother telling him off.

It was hard getting to sleep that night, probably because I'd just slept for almost 16 hours and that huge fight. Ron and I slept in our own dormitories, just in case. I finally did fall asleep.

Harry, Ron, Ginny, and I were taking a stroll in the Forbidden Forest. "Lovely day isn't it," said Ron. Suddenly, Harry turned green and started to grow. He looked kind of like an extra terrestrial, only larger than in movies. I heard someone behind us speaking French. I tried running out of the way, but I tripped on the hem of my dress. DRESS?! I hadn't been wearing a dress before. I'd been wearing a cloak over jeans and one of Ron's sweaters. The French person started shooting arrows. We all ran out of the way.

Ginny had a bit of a difficulty, because she had turned into a donkey. The arrow shooting stopped as Ron karate chopped the French guy, who fell to the ground and turned into a potato. He sat on the ground and started to cook the potato in a fire that had just appeared. I yelled, "There's an arrow in your butt!" but then the arrow vanished and we were on a mountain side.

Something was lurking in the shadows. It sounded like a snake, but I definitely wasn't going to go check. Last time we saw a snake, it killed Seamus. Harry started speaking parsletongue and out hopped a rabbit. Apparently, we were all afraid of the rabbit because we all started shooting spells at it. Ginny was human again. The rabbit sat up and started tap dancing. It jumped up and bit off Ginny's hand. She definitely wasn't having a good time. First she'd been a donkey and now she was right handless.

The rabbit suddenly died, so Ron threw it in the pot with the potato.

Everything went dark. A green light flashed and Seamus was standing in front of us dressed as a leprechaun. …he was a leprechaun. He threw gold at me and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me violently and shouting, "Hermione! Hermione! We have to go, Hermione! HERMIONE!"

I jerked awake. It was Ron that was shaking me. I told him about my alien, French arrow, potato rabbit, leprechaun dream. He started to laugh, but swallowed it, handing me my wand. "We have to go," he said solemnly.

Ron

The fighting soon commenced. Even though we outnumbered them, they wouldn't let up. Of course, we were all so tired and grievous that we couldn't really concentrate. A few minutes after it began, Lupin and Kingsley had already fallen, along with Bill and Charlie.

Fred, George, and I watched as the last remaining members of our family died. It was enough to make you want to hit Voldemort with one of the bazooka gun thingies, not that it would help, most likely. A stunning spell whizzed past his ear and he stopped thinking about that and started thinking about the battle. Hermione was right at his side and if he wasn't fighting for his and his companion's lives, he would have been happy. A few feet away, Fred and George were fending of a woman that looked as though she could have ripped out their throats with her finger nails.

To everyone's horror, that's exactly what she did. Time stood still except for her hand with its long, jagged nails. For seconds that seemed like decades, nothing happened. Then George fell to the ground, drenched in blood, a deep gash in his throat. Fred fell to the ground beside him, causing everyone to think he'd been cut too, until he started screaming and rushed at the woman in hopes of strangling her. She sniffed in disgust and stunned him.

I was brought back to Earth by a splashing sound behind me. In all the chaos, I hadn't noticed we were right next to the lake. And while we watched our team mate fall, the Death Eaters took advantaged and had continued fire spells.

The warmth of Hermione's body had disappeared from my side. I spun around, looking for her, only to be hit hard in the side of the head by a branch that had been banished in my direction.

Stars floated around me as I struggled to find my balance, when I was hit again. At first I had thought it was an accident, but then I realized that they had discovered my weakness. Being so tall allowed for things that normally soared over everyone else's heads to hit me square in the ear…or nose…or eye, or fore head. I ducked just in time as another branch grazed the tips of my hair. Picking a random spot, I pointed my wand and yelled, "STUPEFY!" Someone fell to the ground and I was relieved, as I opened my eyes, to see that it was a Death Eater.

Hermione! I suddenly remembered that she had moved away from me. She was no where to be seen. A cold wind rustled the trees of the Forbidden forest. It was unnaturally cold for the middle of May. The splash! I wheeled around to face the lake. I could only just spot the light blue sweater she was wearing, but it was sinking fast. Without another thought, I jumped into the lake, swimming furiously out to her before she sank too far beneath the surface.

The water was cold, but it took a while for me to realize it. I was so focused on saving Hermione that everything else that had filled my brain just moments before disappeared. When I pulled her back to the surface, I expected her to gag and sputter as I had done during the 2nd task, but no sound issued from her lips. Either she had been stunned or…I shuddered. I didn't want to think about that.

She was cold, but that was probably because of the water. I dragged her onto shore to find, once again, that the Death Eaters had retreated. I hadn't noticed.

Harry helped me carry her to the common room. The couch was occupied by Fred, and we still couldn't get up the stairs of the girls dormitories, so we took her into our dormitory. We set her on my bed and Harry pulled out his wand and said quietly, "Enervate." Her eyes popped open as she gasped and started choking up water. As soon as all the water was out of her lungs, she started shivering uncontrollably. I gathered all the bedding in our dormitory and placed it gently over her.

Dreading what we were going to find, Harry and I made our way down to the common room. As soon as my feet hit the floor of the common room, Fred jumped at me. My arms flew over my head, thinking he was going to try and strangle me again, but he'd headed for Harry, his wand out.

"This is your fault! If only he'd killed you as a baby! Maybe then my family would still be alive!" He wheeled around, his wand still on Harry, and looked at the rest of the room. "Can you see this is pointless?! There are 6 of us left! One of us is upstairs shivering her head off! One of us is almost 200 years old! Neville's too scared to hold up his wand! It's Harry's fault! And you!" He faced Ron. "You're all wrapped up in Hermione you don't even notice anything else! It's not as if you haven't seen her the last 7 years of your life! Sure, there are 6 of them left too, but one of them is the Dark Lord! Ron, we're the only Weasleys left alive! Mum, Dad, George! God only knows whether Percy's alive or not! You're all crazy! We can't win! We never had any chance of winning! We…"  
"Mr. Weasley that is quite enough. We understand what you are saying without you having to shout it into our ears. I must remind you that, as they have the Dark Lord, you have the two people that Voldemort is most afraid of: myself and Harry. I am guessing that Miss Granger, how ever infatuating as she may be, is probably warming up as we speak, and is trying to sleep, most likely. Mr. Longbottom has shown more courage these past few days than anyone I have known in my almost 200 years. You will notice that most of the school fled in fear and he stayed. Not only did he stay, but he has managed to stun most of Voldemort's most advanced followers. Harry did not cause this, and I'm sure he would appreciate it if people would stop blaming him," Dumbledore had stood up. This was the first thing I could remember him saying in days. "And I'll have you know that Percy is alive and well. He is currently at your house, waiting anxiously for your return."

If Fred had expected any sort of reaction, it wasn't this. He seemed to take all of it in at once, and when he did, he burst into angry sobs and buried himself in my sweater. Looking at Dumbledore, I slowly patted his head. Dumbledore nodded.

It was weird to watch my older brother have a nervous break down right here in front of everyone. It was even weirder to be able to comfort him, when all he'd ever done was tease me. I looked up the stairs towards the dormitory, thinking of Hermione. Fred was right. I was wrapped up in her. I could only see her. He finally stopped crying, and I excused myself from the room

For a minute or two, I stayed in the hallway, thinking about everything that had just happened. All that was left of our family was me, Fred, and Percy. Perfect, Prefect Percy who was sitting safe at home, probably in bed by now. He was such a fraidy cat. Or was he smart? I'd had the opportunity to leave, hadn't I?

The dormitory was dark and I could hear Hermione's deep, shivering breaths from the depths of my bed. Fred's words still in the back of my mind, I lifted the covers and wrapped my arms around her. She stopped shivering almost instantly as if I'd given her some sort of warming potion.

Hermione

"My mind keeps running over every useless fact in 'Hogwarts, A History'," I said. Ron and Harry looked up at me, as if they expected me to recite something from the book that could possibly help. Neville, Harry, Ron, Fred, and I were sitting in a circle on the common room floor. My arms were wrapped around my knees and I was staring at the floor. Dumbledore had gone to his office a few hours ago. As if he thought it would cheer me up, Ron moved closer to me and squeezed my hand. "Everything I've ever cared about, everything I've worked for, it's all been in preparation for a future that no longer exists. I know you always thought I took the competition too seriously. You were right. It was all for nothing."

No one spoke. Suddenly, Harry stood up as if he had been sitting on something very sharp and very hot. "Look at all of you!" he shouted in disbelief. "You're just sitting here, on the floor of the common room, reminiscing about all the stuff you've done that you wish you hadn't! Do you all think this is hopeless, or what?!"

"Well, Harry, what do you suggest we do, play chess?! We're just preparing to go down fighting, by your side. Is that so wrong?" I snapped. Still, no one spoke. "What's everyone's favourite colour?" They looked at me quizzically. "Harry doesn't want us 'reminiscing', so we're just going to go around saying our favorite things. Is that alright, Harry?" He took a deep breath and nodded. There was nothing better to do.

"Red."

"Blue."

Ron sighed. "Maroon."

"Green."

Everyone seemed to be taking it better once we'd started talking about other things. "Purple. Someone else come up with something." When no one said anything, I twirled me and said, "Person."

"Gran."

"George." Everyone winced when Fred said his name.

Giving my arm a little nudge, and smiling a bit, Ron said, hitting more towards Fred than anyone else, "Hermione." Harry was silent. I thought I could see tears forming in his bright green eyes, but I wasn't about to upset him more so they would then be on his face. Ron must have noticed too, because he moved in towards Harry and said, "Harry, are you alright? Do you want to stop talking? Sleep or something?" Harry shook his head, but still didn't say anything. We couldn't really decide what question he was answering, so we stopped talking.

Dumbledore came back about an hour later, holding a long package. He handed it to Harry, and said simply, "You know what to do." We watched in a hushed eagerness as Harry removed the wrapping to reveal a thin sword with jewels imbedded in the hilt. Our eyes widened.

"Harry…is that…the sword you killed the basilisk with?!" Ron exclaimed. None of us had opened our mouths in over an hour, but now we sat gaping at the sword as if we'd never seen one before, which I was soon reminded, not all of us had. Neville reached out a shaking hand, but pulled back quickly as the point of the sword pricked his finger. I don't think we'd expected it to be sharp.

It had started raining when we were up in the common room. The water was now falling in gigantic droplets. After 2 minutes of fighting, our clothes were soaked through. It was still cold outside, but we were too busy to shiver.

As expected, Fred had headed straight for Bellatrix Lestrange, wand out and teeth bared. No sooner than had he done this than the same fate George had come to met him. Harry let out a sort of growl and wheeled the sword around. I was strongly reminded of an old samurai movie my parents had made me watch once. Blood went everywhere as Harry flashed the sword around, and soon, there was no Death Eater left alive. Neville, Ron, and I were cowering behind Harry as a dark, hooded figure walked toward us. Dumbledore had disappeared a while ago.

Our worst fears proved true when the figure pulled back its hood. Even Harry looked frightened when the bright red eyes and snake like nose were revealed. Everything seemed in slow motion as Harry lunged forward. He seemed to have a special shield around him that blocked all the harmful spells from hitting him. Wand and sword connected. Voldemort's wand certainly was powerful. Under the full weight and sharpness of the sword, not so much as a splinter parted from the wand. Harry lunged again, this time hitting Voldemort in the arm. The menacing ness of his laughter rang through the air, but it turned into a scream of defeat. Daring to look up, I saw that Harry had plunged the sword through Voldemort's chest, where his heart would have been.

Ron grabbed my hand and we began to run towards the forbidden forest. The cackling laughter had begun once again. I looked back to see that the power of the sword, combined with the power of Lord Voldemort was causing some sort of explosion. We ran faster as Ron called out to Harry and Neville. Neither of them had moved, Neville from fear, Harry from determination. I knew what Harry was doing. He'd mentioned something about the prophesy to me a few weeks ago, but I hadn't heard it, so I didn't know what he was talking about…then.

Dropping my hand, Ron turned back to go grab Harry. I pulled him back, not wanting to, but having to. He finally realized what Harry was doing. He'd done the same thing in 1st year, so he knew how Harry felt, a little bit. "But what about Neville?!" he exclaimed.

Neville had stood up, the fear gone from his face. He was doing the same thing as Harry. I wanted to stop him, both of them, but I knew I couldn't. To avoid watching when the explosion happened in full, I turned to the Forbidden forest and ran with all my might, Ron at my heals. The explosion was so powerful when it happened that Ron and I were flown forward and I landed with my elbows poking into his chest. All noise died and he mouthed quietly, "Ow."

Scared of what we were about to see, we made our way out of the forest. Our mouths dropped open. There was nothing left besides the crumpled remains of the castle. The grass was smoldering in patches.

"…he did it. He sacrificed himself to save the wizarding world…and this is what's left of it…burnt grass, ruins, and…his two best friends," I said, I kicked aside a rock and gasped. I bent down and picked up Harry's glasses. The lens was cracked and the frames were bent. "So…where do you want to go, the Burrow?" Ron shrugged. "I suppose we could go shopping, like you said. Though it seems kind of pointless, without buying Harry's shoes."

Ron nodded. "Yeah, okay…now what?"


End file.
